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These are the three pillars on which Ed Notes is founded – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We are part of a tiny band of resisters. Nothing will change unless YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Newark Contract: Weingarten is a Serial Pusher of Bad Contracts

The NTU leadership and Weingarten ought to be ashamed they're pushing
this piece of shit contract onto Newark teachers, but they're incapable
of that emotion.They're too busy sucking up to the corporatocracy as they collect their
six figure salaries and benefits and sell working teachers down the
river with these "innovative" contracts Weingarten and the education
reformers/corporatocracy love so much. It's time to rid the AFT and the locals of these corporate shills and
bring in leadership that defends public schools and teachers from the
horrors of corporate education reform. ----Reality-Based Educator

When the Baltimore Teachers Union was initially faced with a merit pay proposal in 2010, they turned it down. But after Randi Weingarten and the AFT went there to convince the Baltimore teachers that this was a good contract, a second vote passed merit pay and the contract provisions. Since then, the number of unsatisfactory evaluations (ineffective) shot up throughout the city, in some schools as high as 60%. Let’s not repeat these same errors. ---NEW Caucus analysis of contract

The Weingarten tactic she and Unity Caucus used here in NYC in pushing the 2005 contract of saying the only alternative is to strike is being used hot and heavy in Newark, as Jersey Jazzman chronicles in this letter (A Newark Teacher Speaks) from a Newark teacher:

From every account I heard, however, our rep told those who were there that if we don't vote for this proposal, the only thing left will be to strike - with no income, no benefits, etc. Now several people who were firm NO votes are concerned. They are waffling.

JJ has many articles on the contract but does not take an out and out stand against it trying to lean over backwards to give Weingarten a break:

I also appreciate the work AFT president Randi Weingarten and Newark Teachers Union president Joe Del Grosso did to get this deal done. I am a union guy - I am on your team.

“This is not a merit pay system,” said Weingarten. “This is a full compensation system where the work you do and the compensation you have are tied in together.” She said the new contract is “aligning the evaluation system with experience” while offering “significantly higher salaries for teachers all throughout their experience. … When you have all of those components, that’s a professional compensation system." [emphasis mine]

A lot of people met Del Grosso and the union leadership tonight and it
doesn't sound like too many of them are happy with this sell-out
contract.

We'll have to see how the vote goes, but if tonight is any indication,
Randi Weingarten and the rest of the corporate shills at the AFT and the
NTU might have some trouble getting this "piece of garbage that will
divide the union" passed.

And that's of course exactly what this contract is meant to do - divide
teachers, pit school staffs against each other, pit young against old,
pit other teachers in New Jersey against teachers in Newark if they
agree to this contract and merit pay comes to other towns and
municipalities.

The NTU leadership and Weingarten ought to be ashamed they're pushing
this piece of shit contract onto Newark teachers, but they're incapable
of that emotion.

They're too busy sucking up to the corporatocracy as they collect their
six figure salaries and benefits and sell working teachers down the
river with these "innovative" contracts Weingarten and the education
reformers/corporatocracy love so much.

It's time to rid the AFT and the locals of these corporate shills and
bring in leadership that defends public schools and teachers from the
horrors of corporate education reform.

And of course out brothers and sisters in the NEW Caucus which we in MORE relate to. Here is their latest analysis of the contract. I imagine they will play a similar role ICE and TJC played in the 2005 contract battle here in NYC where we did help turn out almost 40% to vote NO despite the Unity machine going out full force.

Here is what NEW sent out:

NEWCaucus members and supporters:

For all of you who came out today, THANKS! We had a great meeting, and met lots of new people! It's inspiring to talk and share with great colleagues who care about their profession and their union.

Attached is another pdf of the Working Analysis of the Proposed Contract

NEWCaucus members and supporters: {SEE BELOW}

For all of you who came out today, THANKS! We had a great meeting, and met lots of new people! It's inspiring to talk and share with great colleagues who care about their profession and their union.

Attached is another pdf of the Working Analysis of the Proposed Contract, for those who missed it the first time around. Alsoattached is the October issue of NEW Views.

Please read it - and the Contract MOA - carefully before Monday's vote!

● THIS CONTRACT IS INHUMANE! IT THREATENS THE HEALTH AND FAMILIES OF NEWARK EDUCATION WORKERS!

● THIS CONTRACT SLASHES TEACHERS SALARIES AND BENEFITS!

● THIS CONTRACT DESTROYS OUR UNION! At every turn it destroys our ability to defend and protect our members!

● THIS CONTRACT PITS TEACHER AGAINST TEACHER! It destroys union and working class solidarity!

● More Turnaround schools! More charter schools! TEACHERS WILL BE ROBBED OF JOBS! Larger class sizes!

● DICTATORIAL SUPERINTENDENT CONTROL OVER NEW EVALUATION SYSTEM!

● LOSS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN RETROACTIVE PAY! No guarantee WHEN we get it!

● LOWER SALARIES OVER TIME for those who choose OR are FORCED into Merit Pay!

● LOWER SALARIES for ALL employees, EVEN THOSE WHO STAY ON TRADITIONAL SCALE!

● Few teachers will be rated Highly Effective! FEW TEACHERS WILL ACTUALLY GET BONUSES!

● The philanthropic money for merit pay can disappear, as it did in Washington DC, leaving NPS without money to pay bonuses!

● LONGER PERMANENT HOURS, FOR NO ADDITIONAL PAY! THIS IS A CUT-THROAT BUSINESS CONTRACT, NOT A SOCIAL JUSTICE CONTRACT.

● IT ENSURES THE PRIVATIZATION OF NEWARK SCHOOLS WITHIN 5 YEARS

● IT MEANS INDENTURED SERVITUDE FOR EDUCATION WORKERS

● IT DOES NOT PROVIDE STUDENTS WITH ANYTHING THEY DESERVE IN SCHOOL SOLUTION = VOTE NO TO MOVE TO ARBITRATION

● DEMAND THE FORMATION OF A RANK-AND-FILE CONTRACT COMMITTEE

● ENABLES WILLING AND ABLE NTU MEMBERS TO WORK WITH LEADERSHIP TO PREPARE A COUNTER, SOCIAL JUSTICE-BASED CONTRACT

● NEED EQUAL RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS, SMALL CLASS SIZE GUARANTEE, INCREASED LEARNING SUPPORTS, BALANCE OF POWER IN EVALUATION PROCESS, REDUCTION IN PAPER WORK FOR TEACHERS, ANTI-BULLYING PROVISION, HIRING POOL, FAIR COMPENSATION, A STRICT TIMETABLE FOR FUTURE NEGOTIATIONS SO WE NEVER GO TWO PLUS YEARS WITHOUT A CONTRACT

CONTRACT ANALYSIS

TEACHERS COACHING AND EVALUATION:

While the descriptions of the Peer Oversight Committee and School Improvement Panel and Peer Validators seem to offer a modicum of protection for teachers from administrative abuse, both the Oversight Committee and School Improvement Panel are “ultimately” under the control of the Superintendent. In Part 1B, number 5, the language is clear: “The Superintendent will retain ultimate authority over the selection criteria, and management of Peer Validators.” In Part 1D, the language is even clearer: “The principal and his/her administrative team – with support from the Superintendent’s team – are ultimately and solely responsible for the decisions, content and quality of teachers evaluations. Nothing described in Section 1A, 1B, or 1C of this MOA shall be interpreted as challenging this premise.” In others words, both the Peer Oversight Committee and the School Improvement Panel are completely and unquestionably under the control of the Superintendent.

Beyond that, even the Peer Validator system is weak. It only includes 1 Peer Validator, rather than a committee. Further, the “Peer” Validator does not even need to be a peer. This leaves even that process open to corruption or manipulation. Part 1, section C2, it is clear that Peer Validators do not even need to be your peers.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:Retroactive Pay is, in general, about 1/3 of what you are actually owed. IN NO CASE IS RETROACTIVE PAY THE ACTUAL AMOUNT YOU HAVE LOST OVER THE PAST 2 PLUS YEARS!

If you have a Bachelor’s Degree only, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE in what salary scale you must accept. Young teachers with a Bachelor’s Degree and ALL new teachers for years or decades into the future will be on the Merit Pay scale.

This contract discourages teachers from furthering their education by pursuing graduate degrees. There is NO incentive for teachers to become experts in their field, which helps us know our content better and become better teachers.

Further, teachers on the Merit Pay scale are slightly higher than those on the Regular scale. However, within a few short years that changes. For any conceivable position, after a few short years the pay of those who choose to stay on the Regular Scale will be earning MORE per year than those who choose or are forced into the Merit Pay scale.

This effectively creates a two-tiered contract which will split the NTU membership into two distinct interest groups – Merit Pay and Regular groups – WHO WILL IN THE FUTURE HAVE DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT INTERESTS WHEN NEGOTIATING FUTURE CONTRACTS! This will make it impossible for our union membership to stand in solidarity in future negotiations, dividing us so that we can never unify again. This has happened in private industry for the past twenty years. In the book

Now it’s being applied to educators! To get teachers to buy into their Merit Pay system, they propose a bribe. The tentative agreement labels it a “Transition Stipend,” but in reality, that stipend is a bribe, designed to hook teachers into a system that will pay them less over time, and DOES NOT GUARANTEE THEM MERIT PAY OR BONUSES.

If you get an effective on your evaluation, you get your increment, but you only get Merit Pay if you get Highly Effective. In other words, you do not get Merit Pay simply for being Effective. YOU ONLY GET MERIT PAY IF YOU ARE RATED HIGHLY EFFECTIVE.

Harrison, Bennett and Bluestone, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America, they demonstrate how this method is used to PERMANENTLY lower wages for an entire industry.

In Part 2B, number 2C, it specifies that a $2,500 reward will be available only to those teaching in a “hard- staff-subjects.” In other words, if you do not teach in a hard-to-staff-subject--a vague term that is unspecified--you WILL NEVER have the opportunity to earn this reward.

Further, we must look at the funding sources for these “rewards,” “bonuses,” and “awards.” All the money comes from a $20 million per year (about $50 million over the course of the contract) fund taken from “philanthropic funds.” Laughably, Part 2B, section 4, begins with the following: “In the unlikely event that philanthropic funds are not available...” [emphasis ours]. Even without a concrete example of such an “unlikely event,” we can all imagine Marc Zuckerberg becoming fickle, or not liking the way his money is being used, and choosing a new charity for his riches in future years. But we need not imagine anything. In Washington, D.C., the teachers union agreed to merit pay funded by “philanthropic funds,” only to find that philanthropic funding fell by 82% (from an average of $21 million between 2010 to 2012 to $3.8 million after Michelle Rhee left the district). Then, D.C. was stuck holding the bag with no money to pay these bonuses. In essence, merit pay is really never pay.

None of these “bonuses” are pensionable, because they are not considered salary. “Awards” and “rewards” and “stipends” are also not salary, and therefore are also not pensionable.

If you do not give sufficient notice for retirement, you will lose your sick days. You will literally be punished for not putting in your retirement notice early enough.

Even the one area of the contract that seems to sound good, the “sick bank,” is not clearly delineated, and could therefore be administered in an unfair fashion. Who or what will run this “bank”? What criteria will be used to determine how sick days get used? None of this is specified at all. In Part 2B, number 2D, union-sponsored courses are specifically NOT approved for credit equivalency for increment advancement. This delegitimizes the NTU as a professional organization.

In Part 2F, number 3, super-seniority for NTU officials is specifically eliminated. In other words, the NTU is giving up protections for their officials and employees who still work in a school. Again, another step toward the delegitimization of the Newark Teachers Union. In Part 2F, number 3, the wording that previously guaranteed that we could not be forced to work more than 6 hours and 30 minutes is deleted. With no wording protecting us, we can now be required to work more than the 6 hours and 30 minutes that has been the case in the past.

Even our Spring Break is under attack. Part 2F, number 4, the wording that has previously guaranteed us our Spring Break is deleted. Basically, they can, potentially, eliminate our spring break.

For neither of these 2 provisions is there any indication that there will be fair compensation for either those longer days or loss of spring break. In other words, we are being forced to work longer hours without being fairly compensated for our labor-power.

If it’s not an “extended day,” added on to an already 6 hour and 30 minute teaching day, then it is a regular, full teaching day. NPS will attempt to argue that since it’s not an extended day program, employees should not be given any extra compensation.

There is NO provision in this contract for how to place the “Employees Without Placement” in regular positions again. In Chicago, the Chicago Teachers Union negotiated a clause in their recently signed contract that forces the Chicago Public Schools to place those teachers BEFORE HIRING new teachers. Teachers at Renew schools were similarly unprotected.

Renew Schools are actually encouraged to seek waivers from our contract. This essentially makes renew school teachers “at-will employees,” a status that non-unionized workers have because they can be removed from their position more easily if they do not demonstrate uncritical fidelity to their boss.

NPS will designate more Turnaround and “Renew Schools,” which will lead to more loss of placements and charter schools. Part 5, section C1 identifies the three rationales for “renewing” a school: 1) low enrollment, 2) low standardized test scores, and 3) “growth over time”--a vague standard that most likely refers to the yet-to- be-defined methods of connecting student test scores to teacher performance. Most problematically, there is open- ended language in this provision (“...including but not limited to...) that allows for an unending set of reasons for firing the entire staff of a school. Not to be outdone, section C2 states explicitly that NPS will designate 10 Turnaround Schools per year (30 total over the course of the contract). This contract makes school closings, consolidations, and “turnarounds” easier, rather than trying to fight them.

CONCLUSION While all teachers want to get back on our steps, we need to be clear that we are getting back on our steps at a price. Not only are we not getting our full retroactive pay, but we are also getting paid less while being forced to do more, EVEN IF WE STAY ON THE TRADITIONAL PAY SCALE! Further, while the scale and increments for the Universal (read “merit pay”) Salary Scale are better in the earlier years, they are significantly lower over time. In other words, you will fall behind the pay of those on the Traditional Scale after the first few years.

Many of the old methods in the contract worked, or could have worked. But, they were never properly implemented. Department Chairs and Principals have always had the ability to withhold increments or fire teachers. Now, because these prerogatives have rarely been implemented effectively by past administrators, Christie, Cerf and Anderson are AUTOMATICALLY tying our increments and jobs to an unproven, subjective, and yet-to-finalized evaluation system.

Throughout, the state and district are expanding their control and power over decisions affecting working and learning, whereas the amount of control and power of the NTU and education workers over those areas is contracting. There are attempts throughout to delegitimize our union. This is union busting! In numerous places, in the place of concrete regulations or procedures, committees are set up to “monitor” grievances, procedures, and the functioning of the evaluation system. These committees could very easily become bogged down in bureaucratic functioning, as have the current grievance procedures.

NPS has rushed this contract because they wanted NTU ratification in time to make the deadline for Race to the Top, the very federal law that coerces states with billions of dollars in aid in return for closing schools, removing entire staffs from struggling schools, opening more charter schools, and increasing the use of standardized tests.

The rush to complete this is evinced by the many sections which leave open-ended the procedures for implementing or enforcing a statement made in the contract. In other words, many procedures are simply given over to the state to be decided upon later!

This is not a social justice contract. This is a cut-throat BUSINESS contract that will bring the forces of the market to public education. It turns education into a business which does nothing to directly address students needs. In fact, many of these provisions will ultimately hurt students.

It will hurt students by creating a high turnover rate of teachers in schools. Between the two-tier wage system (which has proven to cause high turnover), not putting a cap on how many hours a teacher can work, and an evaluation system that makes sure that teachers are doing what the administration wants them to do, rather than what is best for these students. It is also important to note that there is not a single study that shows districts which have merit pay improved student achievement. Merit pay also assumes that teachers will work harder if they get more money. This can’t be further from the truth. An overwhelming amount of teachers, in Newark and elsewhere, work hard everyday to provide a high-quality education for our students. Many even go beyond our work hours to fight for commonsense, research-based solutions that have been shown to positively impact student development. It is not the will of the teachers that are the main obstacles to increasing student achievement, but the conditions within NPS and the city that keep students from reaching their fullest potential. None of these factors are addressed in this contract.

When the Baltimore Teachers Union was initially faced with a merit pay proposal in 2010, they turned it down. But after Randi Weingarten and the AFT went there to convince the Baltimore teachers that this was a good contract, a second vote passed merit pay and the contract provisions. Since then, the number of unsatisfactory evaluations (ineffective) shot up throughout the city, in some schools as high as 60%. Let’s not repeat these same errors. Vote no, organize our union, and demand a truly fair contract that works to serve the interests of all students and education workers in Newark.

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UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

7 weeks Old - Nov. 2011

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Harlem $ucce$$ Academy Ad

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.